by Maureen Lee
‘Would you like another cup of coffee?’ Rachel asked. She probably didn’t realize how much her eyes were pleading for Kathleen to say ‘yes’.
‘I’d love one, thank you, and one of your delicious fairy cakes.’ She should really be getting back to Steve, but Rachel’s need seemed so much greater.
Anna had recovered her voice. In the restaurant, she had a loud argument with Ernest as to whether he should order a whole bottle of wine. ‘It’s much cheaper than buying it by the glass,’ she said.
‘It depends how many glasses you buy. You’re only allowed one. Unless Victoria can drink the rest of the bottle, it’ll go to waste. I’m having beer. She shouldn’t really drink at all, it interferes with her medication,’ he said to Victoria.
Victoria assured them she couldn’t possibly drink three-quarters of a bottle unless they stayed all afternoon, so Ernest ordered two glasses and Anna made a face at him. ‘Meanie!’
Ernest grinned. ‘I’m just looking after your best interests, luv.’
‘You’re still a meanie.’
They were in the Life Cafe´ in Bold Street where Kathleen and Rachel had lunched the day before on Anna’s recommendation. It was her favourite restaurant. ‘This room’s so gracious,’ she remarked when they went into the circular dining area that had an elegant balcony where more people could be seen having lunch.
‘I’ve always wanted to eat up there,’ Anna said, ‘but I can’t manage the stairs.’
‘I’ve offered to carry her up, but she’s not having it.’
‘I still have some dignity left, Ernie Burrows. You can carry me in private, but not in public. What would you like to eat, Victoria, dear? I’m having chicken salad.’
‘I’ll have curried anything. I love curry.’
The waitress came and Ernest gave their order. They began to talk about computers. ‘Can either of you type?’ Victoria asked.
‘I used to be able to type quite fast,’ Anna said. ‘I learned during the war, but these days my fingers aren’t what they used to be. Ernest can manage quite well with just two.’
From the balcony of the Life Cafe´, Gareth was watching Victoria eat. He’d been hoping for a stress-free hour enjoying the food and the company of his mates, but he’d barely started on his steak and chips when Victoria had walked in with the old couple from the house next door to Hamilton Lodge. They seated themselves at a table directly beneath him. All he could see was the top of Victoria’s dark curly head. He sent half a dozen thought messages telling her to look up, but they mustn’t have arrived because she didn’t.
‘What’s down there, man?’ asked Kevin.
Gareth jumped guiltily. ‘Down where?’
‘Down there where you keep looking?’
‘I don’t know what you’re on about, Kev.’
‘Every time I speak to you, your eyes are somewhere else. You must be getting a squint.’
Gareth ignored this. Earlier, Kevin had told him he was going deaf. He must be giving an awfully odd impression to people. He continued to look down and saw the old guy, Ernie, signal to the waitress and, worried he might be calling for the bill, he leapt to his feet, muttering, ‘Won’t be a mo,’ and hurtled downstairs.
‘Fancy seeing you here!’ he gasped when he reached the table where his neighbours and Victoria were sitting.
‘Oh, hello.’ Victoria blushed.
‘Hello.’ Anna seemed delighted to see him, as if he were a long-lost friend. ‘Sit down a minute, dear. Gareth, isn’t it? We’re leaving soon.’
Gareth sat in the chair next to Ernest. ‘I was upstairs, on the balcony,’ he gulped. ‘I thought I’d just come and say hello.’
‘Hello,’ Victoria said again.
‘Do you work near here, son?’ Ernest asked.
‘In Duke Street, it’s no distance away.’ He liked the old couple, they were the gear, but Gareth wished they would go away and leave him with Victoria. He’d be happy for the whole world to disappear as long as she was left behind, the only two people on the planet, with no one to talk to but each other. He loved her! He loved her in a way that he’d never loved Debbie: deep down, with his heart and his soul and his mind and his body. He longed to tell her now, say it aloud, shout, ‘I LOVE YOU, VICTORIA MACARA,’ so the whole restaurant would know.
The old guy, Ernie, was saying something to him, asking if he’d like a drink. ‘No, ta. I won’t keep you,’ he stammered. Anna had been chuntering on, saying something about computers and being about to buy their first. He said, ‘If you need any help setting it up, let me know.’
‘Victoria’s going to do it, but I’m sure another pair of hands will prove useful. Come tonight if you’re free. We’ll open some wine, won’t we, Ernie? Make an evening of it.’
Gareth glanced at Victoria who was carefully examining her nails. ‘I’ll be there,’ he said in a choked voice.
‘Isn’t he married?’ Ernest said a few minutes later as he helped Anna into her wheelchair. Victoria had gone to the Ladies. ‘You should’ve invited his wife if we’re going to make an evening of it.’
‘Don’t be an idiot, Ernie,’ she snapped. ‘Can’t you see those two young people are madly in love? The last person Gareth wants there tonight is his wife.’
‘You shouldn’t really be encouraging them, luv.’
‘Don’t be such a misery guts. They’ve only got a few days left together. ‘I’ll encourage them all I like.’ She sighed dreamily. ‘It must have been love at first sight, just like you and me, Ernie.’
‘When we first met, you couldn’t wait to get shot of me,’ Ernest grumbled.
‘I was only pretending. I knew for certain we’d meet again, just like that song. “We’ll meet again”,’ she warbled in a shaky voice and everyone turned to look, making Ernest feel hugely embarrassed yet strangely proud of his incorrigible little wife.
In Allerton Road, the tall, luscious figure of Sarah Rees-James, clad in white – stretch T-shirt and stretch jeans – was causing a similar distraction as she pushed the pram along the crowded pavement with a sleeping Alastair inside, Jack crouched at the foot, and Tiffany clutching the handle with one hand and Oliver in the other. Sarah was remarking at the top of her voice on the ‘dear little shops’, saying, ‘How quaint,’ when she saw a beauty parlour.
‘What’s quaint about it?’ Marie asked. She wasn’t even faintly pretty, but usually drew admiring glances with her long red hair. Not today though. All eyes, particularly those of the men, were drawn only to Sarah and, in particular, her shapely breasts.
‘I didn’t think there were places like that out in the sticks.’
‘We’re hardly out in the sticks, Sarah. We’re not far from the centre of Liverpool.’
‘I wouldn’t have expected the people from around here to have facials and leg waxes and stuff,’ Sarah said, much to the annoyance of a passing woman, who turned and glowered at her back.
‘Shush!’ Marie had noticed the woman’s black stare. ‘Don’t talk so loud or someone’s likely to give you a thump.’
‘Well, I’ve never been shopping in a place like this before. It’s almost Victorian.’
‘There’s a Tesco’s over there. Did they have them in Victorian times?’
‘They might have, I wouldn’t know. There’s a hairdressers. It looks quite respectable. I’ll go there and have my streaks done. Hold the pram a minute, Marie, while I buy the children some chocolate.’
‘It’ll melt all over their clothes.’
‘I don’t mind. I love washing things.’ Sarah breathed ecstatically. ‘I feel like a magician when I take them out of the machine and they’re all clean again.’ She disappeared into a sweet and tobacconists called O’Connor’s. Marie held the pram and glanced idly at the cards in the window advertising things for sale.
Sarah reappeared. ‘Isn’t this a super adventure, kids?’ she remarked, giving Tiffany and Jack each a Cadbury’s Flake. ‘Oh, look! There’s a shop where you can have keys made and shoes repaired at th
e same time.’ She looked puzzled. ‘That’s a strange combination. They engrave things too.’
‘There’s thousands of shops the same all over the country, girl. I suppose you threw your shoes away as soon as the heels wore down a bit,’ Marie added caustically.
‘I did no such thing! Mummy used to give them to Mrs Wesley, the housekeeper. She had a daughter who took the same size. Anyway, by that time, they were out of fashion and I wouldn’t have dreamed of wearing them again.’
Marie rolled her eyes. ‘Lucky old you.’
Sarah slowed down the pram and looked at her. ‘Am I getting on your nerves?’
‘A bit. You’d think everyone around here lived in the Dark Ages.’
‘All this is new to me. I’m not used to buying groceries and stuff. All I bought were clothes for myself and occasionally for the children. Nanny always bought their shoes. It was such a bore, having to have their feet measured. Jack always cried, I can’t think why.’
‘He thought they were going to cut his feet off, Mummy,’ Tiffany said.
‘Poor little angel.’ Sarah kissed the top of Jack’s head. ‘Next time, Mummy will take you to buy shoes, darling, and no one will cut off your feet, I promise.’
They walked on. When they passed a small W.H. Smith, Sarah asked Marie if she would hold the pram again while she went to buy a book.
‘What sort of book?’
‘I don’t know,’ Sarah said vaguely. ‘Any sort, really. Alex said one of the worst things about me was I never read books.’
She wandered inside and emerged about ten minutes later with a book in a plastic bag. ‘I told the woman I’d never read a book before and she recommended this one. It’s called Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Isn’t that an interesting title? Oh, look, Marie!’ she shrilled. ‘There’s a dear little cafe´ across the road. Shall we go and have coffee?’
‘OK,’ Marie said weakly.
‘I used to get on Alex’s nerves terribly,’ Sarah confessed when they were having the drinks. She lowered her head and her thick, blonde hair fell forward, shadowing her face, making her blue eyes seem darker. In a low voice, she said tremulously, ‘I’m awfully worried about him, Marie.’
‘There’s no need to worry, surely? The police took him away.’
‘I rang the station this morning and they’d let him off with a caution. My solicitor has applied to have a restraining order put on him, but nothing will stop Alex from getting what he wants. He told me he was going to take the children abroad, that I’d never see them again.’
‘Can he do that without your permission?’
‘He wouldn’t ask for my permission.’ She glanced to see if Tiffany was listening, but she was busy trying to make Oliver drink through a straw. In an even lower voice, Sarah said, ‘I wouldn’t put it past him to come with a gang of thugs who’d snatch them off me and put them straight on to a plane.’
‘I wouldn’t go, Mummy.’ Tiffany had been listening all the time. ‘I’d scream and scream and Ernie would come and save us again.’
‘I know you would, darling,’ her mother said tearfully, ‘but Ernie won’t always be around to save you. I wonder if we shouldn’t move again to a place where Alex will never find us,’ she whispered to Marie.
‘If he’s the sort of man you say he is, there’s nowhere on earth where he won’t find you,’ Marie whispered back.
‘I envy you, Marie.’ Sarah sighed. ‘Your husband, Liam, seems awfully nice. You never complain, nothing bothers you. I wish my life was as calm and trouble free as yours.’
Marie wanted to say, ‘Don’t you believe it.’ Instead, she just shrugged and said nothing.
Victoria had advised getting a proper desk for the computer, ‘With a shelf at the back for the monitor, otherwise you’d have to balance it on books or something to save getting a pain in the neck having to look down all the time.’
Ernie said everything could go in the spare bedroom. ‘It’s still a mess. I haven’t had time to sort it yet.’
‘We could call it the office, Ernie,’ Anna said importantly. ‘Or does the study sound better?’
‘Call it anything you like, luv.’
Desks only came in flat packs, but Victoria said she’d put her own desk together and, anyroad, Gareth would be there to help.
Ernie’s idea of a mess differed wildly from Victoria’s. When they got to Clematis Cottage, she went into the spare bedroom where cardboard boxes, as yet unpacked, had been neatly placed on top of one another. There was a single armchair and a bookcase full of books: in alphabetical order by author, she noticed. Most of the books were thrillers, but there were a few military histories and political tomes on a separate shelf.
Ernie said that, once they were settled, it was where he intended to come and have a quiet read when Anna was watching a film he didn’t like or had a visitor. He was carefully opening the box that held the desk with a Stanley knife.
‘I see you’ve got The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist,’ Victoria remarked. ‘That was Granddad’s favourite book. He read it over and over. I only put it out the other day for a charity shop.’
‘I’d’ve liked to have met your granddad,’ Ernie said. ‘He sounds like a man after me own heart.’
‘You’d have got on well together.’
‘That copy you’ve got,’ Ernest said thoughtfully, ‘Steve next door might like it. He’s a Socialist, same as me.’
‘I’ll take it round sometime. I met Steve’s wife this morning. She seems awfully nice.’
The doorbell rang and Ernest went to answer it. Seconds later, Gareth entered the room. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Ernie’s gone to make us some tea.’
‘Hi.’ Victoria didn’t look up, her head bent over the diagram showing how the desk should be erected.
‘I understand we’ve got a desk to put up.’
Victoria nodded, still not looking at him. ‘It was my idea that they buy it. It’s quite straightforward, there are no drawers or extending bits. I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Of course I don’t mind. I’d do anything, build a house, let alone a desk, if it meant being with you,’ Gareth said simply.
She looked at him then. ‘Don’t say things like that. What about Debbie? What excuse did you give her for leaving? Where does she think you are?’
‘She hasn’t come home. She’s probably gone to her mother’s again. I’m being punished because we had a row this morning. I’m very much in Debbie’s bad books.’ He stuffed his thumbs in his jeans’ pockets and shrugged. ‘It was about money again. She can’t understand why I’m not willing to get even more overdrawn.’
‘I’m sorry, Gareth.’
‘Not half as sorry as I am,’ Gareth said with a sigh, just as Ernie came in with three cups of tea on a tray.
‘Anna’s got wine, but I thought it’d best if we kept our heads clear until this thing has been put together.’
‘You’re very wise, Ernie,’ Victoria told him.
‘It comes with growing old, luv,’ Ernie said gruffly. ‘I wasn’t wise when I was your age else I might have done all sorts of things differently, but then I wouldn’t have had nearly such a good time. Too much wisdom can make life awful dull.’
‘Lord, Ernie! Now you sound even wiser.’ Victoria gulped down the tea. ‘Shall we get started? The sooner it’s finished the better.’
Victoria was kneeling on the bed, looking out of the window at the still and soundless square, and breathing in the heady scent of lavender. She would have gone downstairs and made a drink, but it meant climbing over Gareth who was fast asleep, disturbing him. She’d been unable to sleep herself, although she usually dropped off the minute her head touched the pillow. The last time she’d looked at her watch it had been ten past two.
They’d had a marvellous time at Clematis Cottage – not that anything even faintly exciting or interesting had happened – but just being in the same room as Gareth, knowing how he felt about her and she about him, eyes meeting, hands touching every now a
nd then when they’d put the desk together, sharing Anna and Ernie’s astonishment when the computer had been connected and the logo appeared on the screen.
‘It’s a bloody miracle,’ Ernie had gasped.
‘Don’t swear, darling,’ Anna chided, nudging him.
‘I bet Victoria and Gareth have heard worse words than that in their time,’ Ernie said, not at all apologetic. ‘Now, how d’you play them card games you told us about?’
‘I thought the computer was bought for me?’ Anna complained.
‘You can have a turn in a minute, luv.’
It was almost ten by the time Ernie could be parted from the computer and into the front room to drink the wine and eat the biscuits Anna had provided. Victoria had refused wine, preferring tea and, as soon as she’d drunk it, said she had to be going home. ‘I’ve loads to do tomorrow, walls to wash, that sort of thing.’ Gareth remembered he had work to do on his own computer and it was time he went too.
They’d left together, running hand in hand towards Victoria’s house, knowing what would happen when they got there.
And it had. And it had been wonderful, far better than Victoria had ever known before, even with Philip with whom, until days ago, she’d thought she’d been in love. Gareth had said the same, and she’d told him that he shouldn’t, not when he was married to Debbie, but he said he couldn’t help it. It was the truth.
‘We were made for each other,’ he said softly. ‘It’s another bloody miracle.’
Victoria had sobbed into his shoulder, knowing that what he said was true, but things had all gone wildly wrong because he already had a wife and it wasn’t a miracle, it was a bloody tragedy.
She’d fetched a bottle of wine and they’d drunk it in bed, leaning against the headboard, telling each other tender things, their voices sad because they knew theirs would only be a very fleeting affair.
They made love again and it was even better than before, and then Gareth had made sure no lights were on in Hamilton Lodge indicating that Debbie had come home. It meant that he and Victoria could spend the night together. It might be the only night they ever would. Soon afterwards, he’d fallen asleep, and she had lain watching him, wishing things could be different, knowing it was a waste of time.
